Allow skipping submodule clone

[bendk]

Details

• Project URL: https://github.com/pculture/unisubs
• Build URL (if applicable): https://readthedocs.org/projects/amara/builds/6204577/
• Read the Docs username (if applicable): bendk

Expected Result

Documentation to build

Actual Result

The build process fails when checking out a submodule. That's because it's a optional private repository. It's not needed in general to run the app, and certainly not to build the documentation.

It would be great to have the option to skip submodule cloning for certain submodules, or altogether. This would allow our builds to work again.

[stsewd]

I think this feature is on the plans readthedocs/readthedocs-build#30

[agjohnson]

For now, the most basic for of this change is to look for a .gitmodules and only conditionally run the submodule operations if we have submodules in the repository.

This would also address one of the issues in #3520, where i think we're going to have a lot of noisy commands that we can prune from the build output list.

Edit: oops, I read too quickly. If you have a .gitmodules the above change won't help.

[jerome-labbe-sb]

Hi, since the last update it's impossible for us to build our documentation anymore...
Just like OP, we need an option to skip submodules while having a .gitmodules file in our repo

[stsewd]

@jerome-labbe-sb maybe your problem is related to #3707 (comment)? By @humitos I know the rtd team is working on solving that problem.

[jerome-labbe-sb]

@stsewd unfortunately it doesn't seem to be related...

[stsewd]

@jerome-labbe-sb you can fill a new issue with more details about your problem, so we can help you.

[humitos]

@bendk Hi! We have a temporal flag to skip the checkout of all the submodules, so I added that flag to your amara project.

Later, when the PR pointed by @stsewd is merged, you will be able to configure it by yourself.

I'm closing this issue. Please, let me know if that fixes your problem or not.

[bendk]

Looks good so far, my first build failed but it was unrelated to the submodules. Thanks for the good work!